Set up fund to support pregnant women - CEDEP

The Centre for the Development of People (CEDEP), an NGO, has called for the setting up of a Maternal Health Fund to support pregnant women.

Ms. Abba Oppong, the Head of the Centre, said it was the way forward to significantly improve maternal healthcare and bring down childbirth-related deaths.

Addressing a reproductive health forum in Kumasi, she said such a Fund would without doubt would provide the incentive for expectant mothers to regularly visit the health facilities for efficient care.

The forum was meant to galvanize civil society organizations (CSOs) and community-based organizations into action, to demand increased investment in maternal healthcare services.

The programme was put together by CEDEP with support from the Planned Parenthood Association (PPAG) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and in attendance were health professionals and representatives of civic society.

Ms. Oppong said more should be done to ensure skilled delivery, proper management of postpartum hemorrhage and treatment of hypertensive disorders.

Globally it is estimated that about 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, every day, and this she said could not continue.

Ms. Mabel Kissiwaa Asafo of the Ashanti Regional Health Directorate, counseled pregnant women to attend antenatal clinic so that complications associated with the pregnancy could be properly handled.